IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - November/December 2019 - 80

Experience around the world has proven that retroactive changes
to installed resources can affect many stakeholders and be
extremely costly and complicated.
requirements, grid codes, and technical regulatory policies.
These standards drove the development of the electrical world,
and now they play an important role in its transformation. We
explore here the rapidly evolving standards world, one that is
both the product of unprecedented technology and an environment for enabling even more technological advancements.

Overview of Global Interconnection
and Reliability Standards
IEC Standards
The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is an
international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic,
and related technologies. IEC standards work is carried out
through technical committees (TCs) and subcommittees
(SCs). That work covers a wide range of topics from power
generation, transmission, and distribution to wind energy and
solar energy.
TC8: TC on System Aspects of Electrical
Energy Supply

IEC TC8, in cooperation with other TC/SCs, develops standards
related to the overall system aspects of electricity supply, including grid integration and end-user connections. The two SCs
under TC8, SC8A and SC8B, develop standards, specifications,
and technical reports on the grid integration of renewable energy
and decentralized electrical energy systems.
SC8A, the Grid Integration of Renewable Energy Generation Subcommittee, was established in July 2013 and proposed
by the China National Committee after the publication of an
IEC white paper, "Grid Integration of Large-Capacity Renewable Energy Sources and Use of Large-Capacity Electrical
Energy Storage." With a focus on the system-wide effect of a
high percentage of renewables, the group covers grid integration standards for renewable energy, such as interconnection
requirements and related grid-compliance tests. With a gridlevel perspective, the group also oversees standards and documents for sharing best practices related to the planning, modeling, forecasting, assessment, control and protection, scheduling,
and dispatching of renewables.
SC8A established ad hoc group, AHG3, to develop a road
map for the activities of SC8A over the next three to five years.
The road map summarizes the major challenges for integrating
renewables into the grid and outlines critical activities to address
them. The document addresses how wind and solar plants affect
the grid as renewable output becomes more significant.
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ieee power & energy magazine

The main subjects of the road map are areas that need to
be defined, developed, and/or coordinated for the seamless
integration of renewable power plants. Renewable technology,
particularly that related to inverter-based resources, is continuing to rapidly evolve, and penetration levels are climbing
globally. As new technology develops and penetration levels
rise, gaps widen in the understanding of the state of the art
as well as how the latest technology is deployed. The road
map addresses such gaps, including those concerning connection to weak grids and special application problems, such as
control interaction due to grid resonances, plant-level coordination issues, and voltage and frequency control issues. The
road map will be reviewed on a biannual basis to ensure that
the tasks and priorities remain valid and identify any new concerns that may arise. Joint Working Group 5 (JWG5) has been
recently formed to coordinate work on items that have been
initiated by the IEEE and CIGRE and those introduced by
SC8A. Such items include standards needed to address weak
ac grid interconnection and control stability, control interaction due to grid resonances and power system damping, fast
frequency response, and performance during balanced and
unbalanced grid faults. Seven working groups have been
established with experts from 16 participating countries. By
the end of 2018, there were five WGs or JWGs established
under SC8A. Besides AHG3 and JWG5, SC8A also oversees
WG1 on vocabulary, WG2 on forecasting, and JWG4 on gridcode compliance assessment.
A sister SC to SC8A is SC8B, an SC focused on decentralized electrical energy systems. SC8B prepares standards
enabling the development of secure, reliable, and cost-effective systems with decentralized management that complement traditional large interconnected and highly centralized
systems or are alternatives or precursors to such systems.
One of the concepts that SC8B covers is the general planning, design, and control of microgrids. This group is also
writing a road map reporting about how decentralized energy
can pave the way for future standards development in this
area. Its WG4 is drafting two standards, IEC 63189-1 and
-2, covering the functional requirements and applications of
virtual power plants.
TC88: TC on Wind Energy Generation Systems

IEC TC88 has pioneering experience with international standardization in the field of wind energy generation systems. It
covers wind turbines and wind power plants, both onshore and
offshore, as well as their interaction with the electrical systems
to which they supply energy. While the first TC88 standards
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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - November/December 2019

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